In his novel "Dracula", how does Bram Stoker use Gothic conventions to engage the reader?

Dracula Essay In his novel "Dracula", how does Bram Stoker use Gothic conventions to engage the reader? Gothic writing was popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Gothic writers usually write their novels to create a sense of fear along with excitement and anguish for the reader. Gothic writing usually followed a pattern of plot, location, and character. In Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" (which was published in 1897) many gothic conventions are used in order to create the atmosphere of fear and suspense which are essential in gothic writing. The story is very complicated and is told by many of the different characters throughout the novel. They include Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker and Van Helsing. A convention is an essential ingredient required in a particular sort of writing. In Dracula the main gothic conventions used are: strange creatures, diaries and letters, blood, weather, sinister buildings and journeys and quests. In Stoker's "Dracula" strange creatures and manifested in the form of mainly count Dracula. The count is a dark creature that is there to give a sense of fear. In his story Stoker wrote, "A tall man, clean shaven, save for a long white moustache, and dressed clad in black." He also writes, "Without a single spec of colour about him anywhere". This shows that the count is a person who likes darkness and dark colours; He is dull and seems almost

  • Word count: 1417
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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How does Bram Stoker use gothic conventions to create an atmosphere of suspense and fear for the reader?

How does Bram Stoker use gothic conventions to create an atmosphere of suspense and fear for the reader? Gothic conventions consist of writing that would scare and excite the reader. Gothic writing was popular during the late 18th, early 19th century. Gothic features include supernatural forces, medieval castles, dungeons and darkness. The type of language is very melodramatic in its style of stereotyped characters. Gothic characters typically include spectres, monsters, demons, corpses, skeletons, evil aristocrats, vampires and Dracula. A Goth is one of a German tribe who invaded Eastern and Western Europe. They are normally barbarous, foul and uncouth. Gothic conventions usually involve journeys, quests, strange creatures and sinister buildings. Gothic novels are created to frighten their readers. In Gothic productions imagination and emotional effects exceed reason. Dracula was first published in 1897, other versions have adapted from the original. The main characters in Dracula include Jonathan Harker, Mina and Van Helsing. Throughout the story, Bram Stoker uses Dracula's abilities, actions and appearance to create suspense for the reader. The novel opens with an extract from Jonathan Harker's journal relating to his journey. In the journal Jonathan Harker expresses his feelings; these include his worries and fears as he travels to Castle Dracula. Bram

  • Word count: 938
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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The key features of gothic literature.

The key features of gothic literature Gothic literature is written to induce fear. To make a story frightening, you have to have the unexplained, an element of the grotesque, strange noises or silence and an ominous series of events. A typical gothic setting could be a castle or an old abandoned house, as long as it is spooky. Gothic atmosphere is created by strange 'goings on' and the weather. For example a storm would set a good atmosphere for a gothic novel. Tension and suspense are also important elements of atmosphere. The characters would be strange in a typical gothic novel, possibly deformed or just very odd. The grotesque custodians in The Red Room are an example of this. These are all techniques used to put a chill down the spine and curdle the blood. The authors wrote these stories to thrill and scare the reader. The title of The Red Room gives the images of blood and danger and romance or passion. As this is a gothic story you know it is blood and fear that is implied by the title. The title of The Signalman doesn't tell you much about the gothic elements of the story. The writer chose to use the first person, by using the narrator, to make you feel as if you're there and so he could include the thoughts going on inside his head. In The Red Room the narrator has no knowledge of ghosts, 'eight and twenty years, I have lived, and never a ghost have I seen as yet.'

  • Word count: 800
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Are Dracula and Atticus portrayed as heroic for breaking society’s taboos?

Are Dracula and Atticus portrayed as heroic for breaking society's taboos? Adam Durbridge Dracula was written in 1897 by Irish author Bram Stoker. The later 1800's were a transitional period in time where social rules and ideas about sexuality, sexual acts and sexual divides were still stringently in place, though a change in the way a person could live, publicly and privately slowly beginning to emerge. The book has many sub text and sub plots, and it is in these place where Dracula parodies and breaks Victorian taboos. At the time when Stoker was writing Dracula, the British held huge prejudices against anyone who didn't fit the WASP or upper middle class mould. Women weren't equal to men, they didn't have the vote, and the childbearing housewife was the ideal and stereotypical woman that was maybe 'respected' or 'required' by the men of the day. The contrast between modern-day taboos and taboos that existed in Stocker's 1897 is massive. Few real taboos exist today, in a discussion in class the only ones that held any truth, which everyone agreed with had to be utterly vile as to compensate for the desensitisation that we have today. To Kill A Mocking Bird was written at the start of the 1960's by Harper Lee. It is set in the 1930's and is written from a child's viewpoint or

  • Word count: 2962
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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A Summary of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

A Summary of Bram Stoker's Dracula Dracula is an epistolary novel, meaning that is composed from letters, journal and diary entries, telegrams, and newspaper clippings. Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray (later Mina Harker), and Dr. Seward write the largest contributions to the novel although the writings of Lucy Westenra and Abraham Van Helsing constitute some key parts of the book. The novel has a slightly journalistic feel, as it is a harrowing account supposedly written by the people who witnessed the book's events. A young Englishman named Jonathan Harker travels through Transylvania on a business trip. He is there to aid Count Dracula, a Transylvanian nobleman, in buying an English estate. His journey into the remote Eastern European landscape is fearsome, although initially he is charmed by the Count's generosity and intelligence. Gradually, he comes to realize that he is a prisoner in Dracula's castle, and that the Count is a demonic being who plans to prey on the teeming masses of London. Possessing the supernatural ability to scale vertical walls and live without a reflection. Dracula leaves him to die at the hands of three female vampires, but Jonathan attempts a desperate escape. Meanwhile, in England, Jonathan's fiancée Mina visits her best friend, Lucy Westenra. Lucy has recently been proposed to by three men Arthur Holmwood, Dr. Seward, and Quincey Morris. She

  • Word count: 1078
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Compare The Kit-bag and The Judge's Houseas Short Stories in the Gothic Horror Tradition.

Compare The Kit-bag and The Judge's House as Short Stories in the Gothic Horror Tradition. The genre of short stories in the nineteenth century began to attract a wider audience all over the world. A very important factor in the growing popularity of short stories was the vast interest in magazines and journals. The market in short stories was also expanding due to the easy money available to young writers. Through the nineteenth century there was significant improvement in the printing technology which gave more variety to magazines. The nineteenth century was a time without television or radios, which meant that reading out loud was a good form of entertainment. Gothic horror is a story, which usually contains murders and torture in many forms such as supernatural, mental or physical. A supernatural example would be like the film Chukkie, that is where two dolls roam around Los Angeles killing people. Much gothic horror came in the nineteenth century written by Bram Stoker, one of his most famous novels was Dracula. Gothic horror is also a form of statues, which represent a more terrifying look in a very distinctive style. I will be comparing two stories The Kit-Bag and The Judges House. The author of the horrifying tale of The Judges House was the magnificent Bram Stoker and the author of The Kit-Bag was Algeron Blackwood. The Judges House is about a student, Malcolm

  • Word count: 2076
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Comparison between "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" using media terminology.

Media Coursework - Comparison between "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" using media terminology. In this essay, I shall be analysing the opening 15 minutes of two films using media terminology. The two films I shall be looking at are of the same basic genre (horror): "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave" - (1968, directed by Freddie Francis, a 'Hammer House of Horror' film) and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" - (1992, directed by Frances Ford Coppola). Because these films were screened at different times and their directors were different as individuals, it should make an interesting contrast of sources, ideas and effects between the two. They both portray certain fictitious events involving the creature created by Bram Stoker - Dracula, who is, as most will know, of the mythical vampire species. I will be studying the film techniques, shots, lighting etc of the two films and analysing them carefully using media "jargon". The stories of these two films are very different, though they are both based on the same creature. In "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave", the story is as follows: A young boy who works for the church as an errand boy discovers a dead woman in the belfry of the church that he works in. The audience is led to believe that Dracula had killed her and drained her of blood. The boy then becomes dumb after the shock of this traumatising

  • Word count: 2457
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Review of Bram Stokers Dracula - the movie (1992).

Original Writing Review of Bram Stokers Dracula - the movie (1992) In this new epic version of Stoker's 'Dracula', the latest film released by Francis Ford Coppola, the medieval vampire vows to get his revenge on God and forever wait the return of the woman he loves, after she plunges to her death. It doesn't come to mind that after three centuries, he may not seem attractive to her. The novel by Stoker inspires the film, which begins with the horrific tragedy of Vlad the Impaler, who went to fight the crusades but returned to the dreaded news of her death from a parapet to a blurred doom far below, which is captured in a great shot and is one of the best effects of this movie. Vlad sees no justice in his fate and believes God has betrayed him, because, after all, he journeyed to the Holy Land to battle in the Crusades for the sake of his name. He is seized by Satan and vampirism, and turns on a trail for blood. We then meet Keanu Reeves, a young attorney who has been asked to voyage to Dracula's castle to arrange real estate transactions. Reeves brings an American sense to the feel of this film but he has a dreadful English accent which is one of the films greatest downfalls. Keanu is met in the darkness to be taken to Dracula's castle. There, everything is more or less as we expect it, which could have been pursued and alternated to give the audience a greater sense

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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The Biblical Archetypes in The Stone Angel: A Comparison Between the Bible and The Stone Angel

The Biblical Archetypes in The Stone Angel: A Comparison Between the Bible and The Stone Angel In the same fashion that the law binds the Biblical Hagar to Abram and Sarah, Hagar Shipley is bound by the Currie code of values, the Shipley freedom, and the Manawakan elitist attitude, in addition to her own pride. Hagar Shipley is a modernised version of the Biblical Hagar, in that, people can no longer be bound as slaves in western culture but are, quite often, bound by personal or social restraints, like Hagar is. Hagar's freedom is limited by the conflicting influences in her own life. The Currie virtue keeps Hagar from expressing any outward form of emotion, which, ultimately, limits or ruins the majority of her relationships, including her marriage to Brampton Shipley. Initially attracted to the Shipley casualness and freedom, because it is the exact opposite to the Currie conformity, Hagar marries Bram, a poor farmer and social outcast. Her marriage, however, seems to be more out of spite than anything else. Having gone from one extreme to the other, Hagar realizes that the Shipley freedom or, more accurately, laziness is not what she wants or needs. In the meantime, Hagar, like her archetype, plays the role of "the dutiful wife." She engages in sexual activity with Bram even though she does not want to. As a result, she bears a son, Marvin, whom she never really loves

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Where there is good there is evil, where there is evil there is good.

All human beings in this world live in a dark society where evil constantly permeates the atmosphere. In the novel Dracula written by Bram Stoker, the movie "Underworld", and the cultural excursion to "The Hound Cage Match", the many good characters only survived by staying together against an "all powerful" enemy. These three media clearly indicated that there is no chance for success by one's own will or action because one's wrongful desire and lack of virtue corrupts one's heart, which lures darkness to the surroundings. Running away from one's fear puts a barrier between heroism and goodness. These media displayed the theme of good versus evil, and heroism. The themes of the three media and the characters desires created a path of evil, darkness, hatred, and goodness in which they all connect. One's own will, to fulfill his/her desire, is nothing more than a dream. A single stick is easy to break, but breaking five sticks at once is not as easy as breaking only one. Dracula, "Underworld", and "The Hound Cage Match" all displayed a bond of friendship and togetherness between the protagonists. In the novel Dracula, evil had dominated the atmosphere of Transylvania ever since Dracula had become the Count of the Transylvania state. Morning never seemed like morning - the sunlight shining through Transylvania did not give a sense of joy to the Transylvanians. Everyday, the

  • Word count: 1411
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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